JuLv 4, 1895] 



NA TURE 



227 



So long ago as 1874, a notice of the life and work of 

 I'rof. Huxley was included in our " Scientific Worthies " 

 (vol. ix. p. 257), and Dr. Ernst Haeckel added to it an 

 appreciative notice of his biological labours. These 

 twenty-year-old publications render it unnecessary that 

 any extensive reference to the subject-matter of them 

 should be given now, and, moreover, the chief details 

 of his life are well known. 



Huxley was born at Ealing in 1825. His scientific 

 training began in the medical school attached to Charing 

 Cross Hospital, which he entered in 1842. Four years 

 later he joined the medical service of the Royal Navy, 

 and proceeded to Haslar Hospital ; from there he was 

 selected to occupy the post of Assistant-Surgeon to 

 H.M.S. Rattlesnake, \.\\c'!\ about to proceed on a sur\eying 

 voyage in the Southern Seas. The ship sailed from 

 England in the winter of 1846, and returned to England 

 in 1850, after surveying the inner route between the 

 Barrier Reef and the East Coast of Australia and New 

 Guinea. During' this period, Huxley sent home several 

 papers, some of which were published in the Philo- 

 sophical Transaetions of the Royal Society. His 

 first important paper, " On the .Anatomy and Affini- 

 ties of the .Medusa;," was published in 1849. His 

 communications, and the evience of ability which 

 they furnished, led to his election into the Royal Society 

 in 1851. 



In 1854, Huxley succeeded his friend Edward Forbes 

 as I'ahcontologist and Lecturer on Natural History at 

 the Royal School of Mines, a post which he held until 

 his retirement in 1885. He was a great teacher, and the 

 high reputation of the School, now combined with the 

 Royal College of Science, is largely due to his great 

 influence. At the request of the Lords of the Committee 

 of Council on Education, he continued to act as 

 Honorary Dean of the School, and at death he still 

 retained that post. He also agreed to be responsible for 

 the general direction of the biological instruction in the 

 School, so that his place as Professor of Biology has never 

 been filled up. 



Huxley was twice chosen Fullerian Professor of 

 Physiology to the Royal Institution, the first time in 

 1854. In the same year he was appointed Examiner in 

 Physiology and Comparati\c .Anatomy to the University 

 of London. Other posl.s and honours were crowded upon 

 him. In 1858 he delivered the Croonian Lecture of the 

 Royal Society, when he chose for his subject the "'Theor)- 

 of the X'ertebrate Skull.' From 1863 to 1869 he held the 

 post of Hunterian Professor at the Royal College of 

 Surgeons. In 1S62 he was President of the Biological 

 Section at the Cambridge meeting of the British Associa- 

 tion, and eight years later held the Presidency of the 

 Association at the Liverpool meeting. In 1869 and 1870 

 he was President of the Geological and Ethnological 

 Societies, and in 1872 was elected Lord Rector of .Aber- 

 deen University for three years. .As might be expected. 

 Prof Huxley held strong and well-defined views on 

 the subject of education. He was a man who at all times 

 had a keen sense of public duty, and it was this which 

 induced him to seek election on the first London School 

 Hoard in 1870. Ill-health compelled him to retire from 

 that post in 1872, but during his period of service as 

 chairman of the Education Committee he did much to 

 mould the scheme of education adopted in the Board 

 Schools. 



He was elected Secretary of the Royal Society in 1873, 

 and ten years later was called to the highest honorary 

 position which an English scientific man can fill, the 

 presidency of that Society. During the absence of the 

 late Prof Sir \\'y\ille Thomson with the Challenger 

 Expedition, Huxley, in 1875 and 1876, took his place as 

 Professor of Natural History in the University of Edin- 

 burgh. From 1881 to 1885 he acted as Inspector of 

 Salmon Fisheries. But this and all his other official 



NO. 1340, VOL. 52] 



posts he resigned in 1885, shortly after which he removed 

 to Eastbourne. 



In 1892, more than six years after his retirement, the 

 dignity of Privy Councillor was conferred upon him. 

 The Copley Medal of the Royal Society was awarded 

 to him in 1888, the Royal Medal having been received 

 by him in 1852 ; and in December last he received the 

 Darwin Medal, the two previous recipients being Dr. A. 

 R. \\'allace and Sir Joseph Hooker. His honorary 

 degrees were : — D.C.L. (O.xford) ; LL.D. (Cambridge, 

 Edinburgh, and Dublin) ; M.D. (Wurzburg.i ; Ph.D. 

 (Breslau). The King of Sweden created him Knight of 

 the Polar Star, and he was elected into most foreign 

 Societies and Academies of Science of note. He was a 

 Correspondant of the Paris Academic des Sciences 

 (Section of Anatomy and Zoology j, and Corresponding 

 Member of the St. Petersburg Academic Impdriale des 

 Sciences, the .Akademie der Wissenschaften, of Berlin 

 and of Munich, the Svenska \'etenskaps-.Akademie, 

 Stockholm, the Halle Akademie der Naturforscher, the 

 Academies of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, Boston 

 and Buffalo, the Gottingen Gessellschaft der Wissen- 

 schaften, the Paris Societe d'.AnthropoIogie. and the 

 Naturforschende Gessellschaft at Frankfurt-a-M. He 

 was Honorary Member of the Royal Irish .Academy, the 

 Accademia dei Lincei at Rome, the Brussels .Acadifmie 

 de Mddecine, the Institut Egyptien at .Alexandria, the 

 Batavia Genootschap van Kunsten en Wetenschappen, 

 the American Academy of .Arts and Sciences, National 

 Academy of Sciences, and the Amsterdam .Akademie van 

 Wetenschappen. He was also Foreign Member of the 

 Brussels .Academic des Sciences, the Haarlem Maat- 

 schappij der Wetenschappen, the Philadelphia .Academy 

 of Natural Science, and the Societa Italiana delle 

 Scienze. 



How far-seeing Huxley was, with regard to our 

 present scientific needs, may be gathered from his 

 address when he retired from the presidency of the Royal 

 Society. He saw that scientific literature would have tO' 

 be organised before it could be fully utilised. His words 

 were : " We are in the case of Tarpeia, who opened the 

 gates of the Roman citadel to the Sabines, and was 

 crushed under the weight of the reward bestowed upon 

 her. It has become impossible for any man to keep pace 

 with the progress of the whole of any important branch 

 of science. ... It looks as if the scientific, like other 

 revolutions, meant to devour its own children ; as if the 

 growth of science tended to overwhelm its votaries ; as if 

 the man of science of the future were condemned to diminish 

 into a narrower and narrower specialist as time goes on. . . . 

 It appears to me that the only defence against this ten- 

 dency to the degeneration of scientific workers, lies in the 

 organisation and extension of scientific education, in such 

 a manner as to secure breadth of culture without super- 

 ficiality ; and on the other hand, depth and precision of 

 knowledge without narrowness." .Another point touched 

 upon in the same address was the claims of science to a 

 place in all systems of education. " We have a right,"^ 

 he said, " to claim that science shall be put upon the same 

 footing as any other great subject of instruction, that it 

 shall have an equal share in the schools, an equal share 

 in the recognised qualification for degrees, and in L'ni- 

 versity honours and rewards. It must be recognised that 

 science, as intellectual discipline, is at least as important 

 as literature, and that the scientific student must no longer 

 be handicapped by a linguistic (I will not call it litcran,-) 

 burden, the equivalent of which is not imposed upon his 

 classical compeer." To the expression of such views as 

 these we owe the increased attention now given to scien- 

 tific instruction in this country, though we have not yet 

 reached the impartial stage to which science has a right. 



It may, perhaps, be too early to fix Huxley's real place 

 in Biology. Writing in these columns in 1874, the 

 eminent German naturalist, Haeckel, ranked him among 



